by Daniel O'Hara

nature

[My first blog post, back in 2009, was a far different version of the poem below. I removed it from the site when I started blogging again in 2013, and had no plans to revisit it. But for some reason, more than six years after I first wrote it, I have started writing it again—and have made it much shorter if not much else. So, gentle poem, welcome back to the internet. (And great Achilles will be sent once more to Troy!)]

The deepest past’s mere meters down,a lot of dust no doubt to thosewho made it, but even groundthis trodden—boots, bare soles—is air to a bomb.A wall that rose,and was buried in time,

What can the nationalist replyWhen reptile naturalists implyThat even mighty Urland’s glory,Like a mite, is transitory?The nationalist may one day turnQuasi-geologist and spurnVolcanically each rival plateThat preaches its own pompous fate.“Is it not just that Urmagnia,Upper crust of old Pangaea,Ought to rule the lithosphere?—It’s blessed by God! And Wegener!”But patriot, however exoticThe limit of your own tectonic—Though it usurp the uniplace—Everything is just a phase!

Tityrus lounges in the shade,Bees lullaby the sleepy glade,The reed sings soft, soft as the grass—Then Meliboeus comes to pass,Sour Meliboeus and his goats,Their grumblings putting ends to oats. Thus always when one feels pastoral Comes some exile with his quarrel.

Though you draw first by chemotaxis,Perfume is not all your praxis:Boundless breathings enter me,And other atoms splinter me,And rustlings nestle in my earBefore hair pricks my atmosphere,And twin eyes spool me up like twineTill magnet motion moors the spineAnd thorns of being stop each pore—My skin says there is room for more,And reeling with each fresh impactOur two expanding worlds contract.

ChocolateAll the chocolate in my father’s shopMelted that Irish heat-wave week intoSmall-scale magmatic floods the windowPelted with heat in unrelenting dropDrop by softening drop they unformed allInto ruination and my father peltedWindowless-wrappered bars into the smallShop fridge to be newly unmelted

RemainsThe ice desires to flow and beWater again (the cold remains);It’s frozen still, though almost inThat shape it had when lately free

a swan skein breaks the water spanish archcloudy corrib like the dog’s tail sweepingour legs paddle the air in idle arcsdangling from the edge above foam leapingfoam spitting white at feathers’ dirty-whiteslipping like dream-thoughts back into the massthe cloudy corrib falling like the nighttoward the bay the ocean into gasgas rising sun-pulled into day and cloudcloud trembling gas into soft mists or hailonce cloudy corrib whispering or loudspeckling earth water feather leg and tailsoaking and sinking in each upturned facerestlessly resting in each passing place

[Just Poems has just joined Twitter! To celebrate I post this poem about that other well-known social media site.]

You who enjoy the famed pastoral formMight like this ode on Facebook, blue and warm.

Swift-dawning springtime field! Webpage, wake up!Ads open in the screenlight, banners dropTheir soothing symbols onto thirsty eyes,The keyboard chirps its song, the keen mouse flies.All through the logged-in woodland bees of codeBuzz, hum and bumble with their data-loadAnd links like pixelated pollen spread,Filling the air with stories to be read;And fertile flocks of updates too take flightOn wings of whimsy, singing of delightIn this online demesne, ambrosia-sweet,Where victory’s not diluted with defeat.

Sing, Site. What’s new? Achilles brave checks in:“In Troy with Ares #forthewin”;Crafty Odysseus, wand’ring near and far,Stops for a craft beer at a hipster bar;The urban muses raise their photo-herds—A thousand pictures paint a million words;Orpheus shares some blogger’s quote profound,A cropped snapshot of nature the background;This nymph you worked with once, but don’t know well,Is pregnant and is showing off the swell.

Ah friends are they not grand, these selfie-ish feedsThat crown with glory’s garland sheepish deeds?And can’t pitch-perfect profiles spurn the shadeAnd pipe forever on where no flowers fade?Or are the cows for crueler climates meant?What is it haunts this forest, Harvard-sent?Do doubt, barbarian of foreign breed,And thought, that exiled, poking, choking weed,Rob us of depth as buckets drain a wellWhen they discard fair fashion like a shell?Are storms foretold in CPU-fan wind?What does the freezing of the page portend?Ah stream of duck-loud nonsense, honey-thick,Is it that life is ended in a click?

Old death goes viral in remotest gladeAnd cares not for nor spares your proud parade.